EROS: The Light Project

HELL III - THE EXECUTIONER

 "Did you have a girlfriend before you died?"

Oh yes, I did. And it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

"I knew a girl, a certain Laura...I had a rather ambiguous relationship with her, let's say. The fact is that at some point it ended..."

-It was all in your head, Nathan. That's what made it so special....
-What do you mean, "It was all in my head?"-.
Gio looked at me indifferently.
-She didn't feel anything for you, she just wanted to have fun, that's why she left you-.
I had my gaze bent down to the carpet in my room....
He was right...
-You just got lucky- I whispered to Gio.
-What are you saying?
-Lucky to know someone like Sara...I can't say the same...-.
-Nat, you'll get your chance too, I'm sure...you know what they say, the sea is full of fish...-.
But Laura was not like all the others....
I would never meet someone like Laura again.
I could feel my teeth getting tighter and tighter and tighter....
I couldn't open my mouth, it was stronger than me....
Aaahhh, at this rate they were going to fall out one by one...I couldn't resist this grip....
I had this feeling every time I ground my teeth while I slept:
but of course!
You were dreaming, it was all a dream!
I reflected: how had I ended up in that room with my brother?
I didn't even know if it was evening or night....
-Gio, I think I was in a dream-.
-God, you know what you have to do to get out of it, Nat: the suicide plan, remember?-he told me.
-No, Gio, I'm not going to jump out the window to wake up! What if it's reality?-.
I heard the cell phone ringing: it was the chorus of that Green Days song.
-Hurry, we have to get out! It's a code red!-shouted Gwendolen from a room in the distance.
-Uuhh, juicy mission- exclaimed Gio wearing his black jacket.
I felt a chill run down my spine:
No, no, not a code red....
Not a chopped-up corpse again....
Not again...
The refrain kept ringing undaunted, fueling my fear.
I loved that song so much...what a cursed choice to set it as an alarm!
Suddenly, I stopped breathing. I felt as if there was something blocking my airway...I tried to take a breath of air, but I couldn't.
Panic assailed me.
I fell to the floor, my knees banging on the carpet.
I had to recover, I had to breathe, but I couldn't do it!
I couldn't do it!
Fireclose's shadow materialized in front of me: he looked gigantic, mastodonic compared to me.
-Did you hear the alarm! Get up, we have to get out-.
But I didn't have the strength to get up.
-I said GET UP!-.
The man pulled a gun out of his pocket and pointed it straight at my forehead.
-If you don't get up on the count of three, I will blow your brains out-.
My eyes wide open, face as pale as milk from hypoxia.
A desperate thirst for oxygen-.
-One...two...-.
I was choking, groping desperately for oxygen, but it was all useless,
ALL USELESS!

-Aaaaaahhhh!-.
I opened my eyes, and the stark reality immediately crashed in on me.
I had a thick layer of sheets in front of my face: it prevented me from breathing and seeing; I immediately freed myself, and took an extremely satisfying breath of air. I was in what looked like the dark room of a hospital; my heart was pounding remembering the last events: the disco, the drugs, the General's shooting....
The cell phone kept ringing, leaning against a nightstand beside the bed. I tried to give myself strength and grabbed it, expecting to find the classic little yellow man; instead, the screen represented only a pool of blood in a completely white screen.
The decapitated bird's head fell onto the puddle; the little man's face was completely disfigured, his eyes open and frightened.
"What the hell?" I wondered in my mind, but E.V.A. immediately answered:

CAUTION: IMMINENT DANGER
Get to safety, you are risking your life.

The writing intermittently expanded and shrank.
I watched that chilling animation, wondering who had the idea to create such a horror.
I turned off the ringer expecting more information.
But the screen went off.
The room was plunged into darkness and silence; I was wrapped in the sheets of the bed, wearing only a pair of long pajama pants.
What did that message mean? Fireclose had said that E.V.A. would warn me in dangerous situations, but at that moment I felt I was safe.
I abandoned the soft sheets that had been keeping my body warm until a few minutes before: the warm breeze of the night immediately made contact with my muscles, stiffening them.
I lifted myself out of bed and placed my feet on the smooth, icy floor.
DOOOOOONNNN!
The devastating din of an alarm burst from a loudspeaker, followed by a voice:
-Warning: a situation has occurred that requires immediate evacuation from the hospital.
Attention: a situation has occurred that requires immediate evacuation from the hospital.
Attention...-.
The door to the room was closed, but beyond the lock I could see a light on.
I thought I heard screams in the distance.
I squeezed the handle gently, opening a small crack: I could see the long corridor of the hospital, and it seemed deserted.
I tiptoed down the corridor, watchful and suspicious.
The walls of the hospital were stained an access orange, and on them hung numerous posters: "Myocardial Infarction: what is it?"; "Prevent Drug Abuse"; "666: The Emergency Number."
At the end of the corridor was a very large dark room; as I entered it, I recognized the outline of numerous metal chairs in front of a wide wooden counter.
The neon sign "Triage" was the only bright thing in that room.
Nestled in a corner, the loudspeaker kept blaring:
-Warning: a situation has occurred that requires immediate evacuation from the hospital. Attention...-.
I reached the counter hoping to find a doctor or nurse to ask for help, but what I saw beyond gave me anything but comfort: a man dressed in a white lab coat wet with dark blood, his chest ripped open and his eyes wide open. I lost my breath imagining who could have committed such a crime, but the worst scenario lay behind me: in fact, the metal chairs in that waiting room housed numerous people, motionless and slaughtered. In the shadows I recognized only terrified looks, blood everywhere and amputated limbs.
Fireclose's voice came back into my memories: there was a serial killer out there, a killer of rescuers....
And I was in a hospital, probably the only source of medical care in all of Hell:
what better place to commit a massacre?
My head began to spin as I tried at all costs not to meet the gaze of the mangled faces of those corpses; they were everywhere, everywhere...
Like a beast in distress, I immediately speculated an escape route, and the only one I could think of was the orange-walled corridor I had just emerged from.
Staggering in fear, I ran past the counter and those chairs and reached the corridor: it stretched for about ten meters, flanking the doors of numerous closed rooms, until I reached a completely white wall.
And in front of that wall stood a gigantic figure, an abnormal being with crooked, stunted legs and a broad, imposing chest; with one arm he held up a strange tool that stretched oblongly, equipped with strange, thorn-like filaments.
An electric shock hit my brain like a bolt of lightning, activating my whole body in the most desperate flight of my life; I began to run from the opposite side of the hallway, back into the midst of those corpses, in almost total darkness, at the mercy of terror ... it was a chilling sight but I no longer cared about anything, because the only voice I was listening to at that moment was dictating only one order, loud and clear:
Run.
The silhouette of a door along the wall of the room triggered my hope for survival, so I splanacled it immediately: another hallway, this time all colored green.
My legs clicked like splinters on the floor as my heart burst in my chest. I had no idea what that creature was, but I was certain that it was the one responsible for the horror before my eyes: the green corridor must have belonged to the psychiatric ward, judging by the Mickey Mouse silhouettes stuck on the walls and the stickers with slogans written on them like, "Don't panic, you're safe here."
During the ride various images ran through my mind in quick review: General Fireclose, Leonardo, Gwendolen and, worst and most frequently, that silhouette behind me.
A tremendous noise behind me suggested that something terrible was chasing me, but I did not have the chore to turn around to be certain.
Running down the corridor I came upon a vision of a doctor, supine and with a blow to the head from which a pool of blood opened. If I had been startled by that animation on my cell phone, what was before my eyes at that moment could not be considered a breath of fresh air.
A trail of blood followed my path across the floor, leading me in front of another patient corpse.
The corridor ended in another room with a small enclosure containing children's toys; I finally found the strength to turn around, and observed that there was no sign of my pursuer.
In front of me was a slide, toy trains, and a small plastic playhouse.
I had never felt such horror, and perhaps it was because of this feeling that I decided to stop running as soon as possible: I slipped inside the little plastic house, closing the tiny door.
Now I found myself huddled in a tiny space, hugging my knees.
I closed my eyes, unable to resist the situation: I had the worst expectations of hell, but never did I expect to die trapped in a children's playhouse, half-naked and hospitalized.
Suddenly, silence fell:
the alarm stopped sounding.
I had just finished dreaming about my brother, or maybe it was Leonardo, or maybe it was a mix of the two, it doesn't matter...the point is that he had given me advice on how to get out of a dream, advice that was in my opinion useless, but then again, that's how it is between brothers (or friends). Gio had given me a lot of advice, and I to him; at that moment one